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Monday, November 29, 2004

Thanksgiving weekend has passed and it was a hectic, but good weekend. Spent most of the weekend in the car driving around Northern New Jersey. Ate a lot, drank some, watched some hockey, and helped my dad build a shed. After all is said and done, I feel like I need a day off to just sit and recover from running around all weekend.

With the films of The Lord of the Rings trilogy now all released, there is very little, if any film to really see this winter. No big event movie, nor any movie that really piques my interest. Sure Alexander is a big movie, but it seems like a wanna-be blockbuster doomed to fail. Blade III: Trinity looks interesting, but is a rental, at best.

Don’t even mention A Series of Unfortunate Events. I’ve read and enjoyed most of the books and my wife absolutely loves the books, too. The promotion behind this movie is not focusing on the darkness of the books and the worst thing they could have done was put Jim Carrey in the role of Count Olaf, king of over-acting and over expression. Olaf was a bit of a goof, but he was much more subtle than anything Carrey does. The only actor who could really fill out that role is dead, Vincent Price. I mean God bless Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket for being able to make some money off of an enjoyable story, but the films look to bear little resemblance to the original story in the books. It seems as if this is just another vehicle for Jim Carrey to make some absurd annoying facial expressions and not about what really makes the stories special, the distinct characters of each of the kids.

As much as I like Zemeckis, he did the same thing with The Polar Express, or at least it looks like he did from the commercials and what reviewers have said. Again, the movie evolved from a simple kids book, one of the most beautiful Christmas stories by Chris Van Allsburg and the movie is touted as a “Journey Beyond Your Imagination.” The clips make the film look like an action-adventure film and the book really isn’t an adventure, it’s a simple heart-warming story of belief in the Christmas spirit.

Hollywood seems to love to do this to simple enjoyable books- change the heart of the story, expand it into something different and splash it up. Two other examples, one including Jim Carrey are Dr. Seuss books – TheGrinchWhoStoleChristmas and The Cat in the Hat.

I will step off my podium now, thank you.

Speaking of Blade III, the film is directed, produced and written by David S. Goyer, the guy who has written the next Batman flick, Batman Begins. Batman Begins is going to be directed by Christopher Nolan, the director of two recent very good movies, Memento and Insomnia. Everything I’ve seen about Batman Begins gives me great hope that this will not only be a great superhero/comic book movie, but a great movie period. Via Comic Book Resources, I found this Link to a really good interview with Goyer at Super Hero Hype! In there he says he likes Gene Wolfe, so my respect for him has increased quite a bit, and he looks to have a pretty good plate of stuff he’s working on.

Batman #634, which came out last week was a decent issue, but there is a HUGE problem with the book. The cover credits are as follow: Winick, Mahnke, Nguyen. I was expecting to read a story by Judd Winick with art by Doug Mahnke. Actually, I was looking forward to Mahnke’s art, his penciling was the only standout aspect of Joe Kelly’s run on JLA. This misprint is huge oversight on DC’s part. Not that I dislike Andersen Gabrych as a writer, actually, I thought he had a very good run on Detective Comics recently, it just wasn’t what I was looking forward to. As it stood, the issue was an epilogue to the Uber-Batman crossover, War Games, finishing out the tale, setting the status quo of the Bat-world, it’s just Nightwing, Batman and Robin now and Bats is considered a criminal in Gotham.

However, the comic I enjoyed the most out of last week’s batch was probably Green Lantern: Rebirth #2. Overall, Johns & Van Sciver set a great atmosphere, the art is spectacular, and there is a real sense of the story going somewhere Important. I’m a long-time GL fan (Hell, I’m wearing a silver GL ring as I type this), but I wasn’t as peeved at the handling of Hal Jordan/Parallax as many long-time GL fans. Geoff Johns has a great respect for and knowledge of GL and DC-lore, and it shows here. I am really looking forward to reading the subsequent issues. All the others were pretty good. Supreme Power #13, after a huge delay finally came out and JMS is still telling a pretty good story, worthy of being on the pull-list. I’m still really loving Adam Strange, Azzarello’s Superman finally looks to be going somewhere and Flash was as solid as ever.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Unfortunately last night, I ran out of pages to read of Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch and I, and most of Tad’s fans, will have to wait until at least 2006 to read the next volume in the saga, tentatively titled Shadowplay. Aside from those two negative points, and they really aren’t negative marks against the quality of the book itself, the book was great. This Epic novel had everything – encroaching non-human enemies, a multitude of characters, royal intrigue, myth & magic, and most importantly, plausible characters and great storytelling. I look forward to re-reading it when the second volume does arrive

SCIFI.com’s Science Fiction Weekly is live with a great review by Claude Lalumière of Superman:Secret Identity, the superb Superman mini-series by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen from earlier this year. The duo introduce us to a world with no superheroes, a world much like our own. They introduce us to Clark Kent, a young man who constantly gets the requisite Superman-themed gifts for birthdays and holidays. Then on his birthday, he realizes he has superpowers similar to Kal-El’s. That’s the starting point and from there Busiek takes the reader on a very human, very heartfelt story. I won’t say more since Lalumière does a great job of covering what made this mini-series so wonderful earlier this year and a must have trade-paperback/graphic novel. For me, it again reinstates Busiek’s gift for storytelling in the comics medium, his wonderful ability at mixing the everyday with a sense of wonder.

Author of the week:

This week’s author of the week is Robin Hobb, since the concluding volume of her Tawny Man Trilogy, Fool’s Fate, is released in paperback this week in the US. This book is also the concluding volume in a trilogy of linked trilogies. You see, in Fool’s Fate, Ms. Hobb brings the story of FitzChivalry Farseer to its end. Fitz’s story started in Assassin’s Apprentice, continued in Royal Assassin and Assassin’s Quest. Ms. Hobb then told, in the Liveship Traders trilogy, the story of a family of sea faring traders, who sail on living ships. This saga took place in the same world as Fitz’s story, but in a different locale. After the Liveship saga drew to a close, Ms. Hobb picked up Fitz’s tale 15 years after the conclusion of Assassin’s Quest with Fool’s Errand, and linked the two earlier series more closely. So 9 books in roughly 9 years, a pretty impressive thing in itself, add to that the good reception from both critics and fans of fantasy, and you’ve got one of the modern masters of Fantasy. For me, these nine books stand pretty high on my personal canon of Fantasy Literature, and I can’t recommend them enough to any reader who enjoys Epic/High Fantasy.

Beer of the week: Guinness. The smooth creamy stout loved the world over. Few beers improve upon taste from bottle/can to draught, and this is one of them. A beer that goes great with a juicy 16oz steak, for me that is one of the true measuring sticks of a good beer.

The Yankees have made little movement thus far in the off-season, as the never-ending quest to acquire Randy Johnson continues.

Tomorrow’s turkey day, a day filled with food and drink to celebrate family, or as some cynics have said, to celebrate our colonists one act of kindness in our otherwise genocide-like attitude towards Native Americans.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Locusmag.com again has posted nice, informative essay, this time a Godzilla overview by Godzilla uber-fan and artist extraordinaire, Bob Eggleton. In it, Bob mentions Godzilla receiving a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and I say, it’s about time. I grew up watching Godzilla and have been somewhat of a closet fan of the Big G for my whole life, though I haven’t seen any of the newer ones since Godzilla versus Destroyah and Godzilla 2000, perhaps a trip to the flea market will change that. What can I say, something about giant monsters fighting appeals to me.

Distressing comic news, via Near Mint Heroes as Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo will be leaving Fantastic Four after the current Galactus Storyline. A solid writer/artist team leaving is often a disappointing thing, and Waid & ‘Ringo have been doing a bang-up job for the past two years. Marvel says the new creative team will blow our socks off, or some such ridiculous marketing fluff; I hope there is some truth to that, but the new creative team will have big shoes to fill, indeed. Will it be Bendis or Millar, their go-to-guys? I hope not. FF readers will just have to wait and see.

Here in New Jersey, Speilberg and Tom Cruise are shooting a War of the Worlds remake. This marks two War of the Worlds films in production right now. Cruise & Speilberg did some good things in Minority Report, though, I have to say, I don't have high hopes for WotW.

Not much else, just wanted to add a couple of trivialities in addition to the new linkage on the righ.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Took my wife to Avenue Q over the weekend. I gave her the tickets for her birthday and the date for the play/musical arrived. And damned, if the writers didn’t have me in mind as the target audience for the thing, then I’d like to meet that target guy and say it sucks to be me. But seriously, I’ve seen a number of Broadway shows and Off-Broadway shows, and I can’t remember having a better time, laughing out loud and just shaking my head in agreement at what the puppets and actors were singing and saying.

And for a change of pace today, we went to see Saw. This movie was very good, with a lot of good misdirection going on. The ending was one of the great Holy Shit moments for me, in terms of thrillers/horror flicks. A lot of people have already seen The Grudge, but Saw I think is the one they should see. Gave you the same How the hell did they think of that feeling as Se7en.

Comics blurbs…
Ex Machina #6 – start of a new storyline, and possibly more clues into The Great Machine’s powers.

Superman/Batman #14 – not bad, Pacheco’s art was great, this one has possibilities. I was thinking of dropping the title, though I’m always a sucker, at least in comics, for alternate realities.

From last Week JSA#67 – pretty good story, but I’ve got to say, the art was a little bit of a let down. I think the inker really overpowered Dave Gibbons art. I always thought Gibbons drew a great Superman, but this didn’t look like his Superman.

Fantatic Four #520 Waid & ‘Ringo are spinning out good solid superhero stories.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

George R. R. Martin posted an excerpt from A Feast for Crows yesterday, in I guess, hopes of keeping his fans from e-mailing him and threatening him about the delays of the book. Many of his readers are discontent with the long wait since the last book, A Sword of Storms. Granted, the man has taken longer to publish the book than he initially planned, but so what. What I’ve read of his work leaves me with every confidence that the wait will be worth it. It’s not like there aren’t other good writers publishing today, just take a look at my sidebar.

One of the hottest topics in the SFFWorld forums lately was initiated by Mr. Martin’s posting of his political thoughts after the election. The thrust of the thread/argument initially was whether or not readers should allow an author’s political views to deter them from reading said author’s work. In the case of Mr. Martin, if you don’t agree with his views on the election, should you continue reading his work? While the topic has wandered a bit, it has been a fairly healthy debate with a few well-known authors posting their thoughts (R.A. Salvatore, Matt Stover and R. Scott Bakker).

Where do I stand on the subject? It is not always easy to separate the artist from the art he or she creates. Their political views, something essentially helping to shape who they are, by definition is going to flavor their writing in some respect. However, I think I can usually separate the two and read the story on its own merits, but knowing the background of the writer can sometimes creep up. If the story is strong enough, if the plot is crafted well enough, if the characters act plausibly, then ultimately, I can read and enjoy the story.

Superman/Batman will have art by Carlos Pacheco, who did a fabulous job on Arrowsmith and some JSA stuff. Senor Pacheco is going to be the regular artist on the Green Lantern ongoing, once GL: Rebirth finishes up. Other than that, all pretty solid looking stuff.

This week’s writer of the week is the great pulp-writer, Robert E. Howard. Howard helped birth the sub-genre of Heroic Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery. REH created, arguably, one of the most recognizable and storied icons in ALL of AMERICAN Literature – Conan the Barbarian. Next week, Del Rey books is publishing The Bloody Crown of Conan, the second volume of Del Rey’s reissues of the Conan Wandering Star volumes and the third Robert E. Howard reprint in the past year-and-a-half. Earlier this year, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane published, and I believe and hope, Del Rey plans on publishing most of REH’s stuff, I’m particularly looking forward to reading Bran Mok Man. The 10th issue of Dark Horse’s Conan series publishes this week. Kurt Busiek is scripting great stories and Cary Nord is creating some great looking art, all told is this is very faithful to the spirit of the REH originals.

My beer of the week is from America’s oldest brewery: Yuengling Lager. This is my favorite every-day beer, it is refreshing crisp and goes down great with a burger, a slice of pizza or while bowling.

Third, SFSite’s Mid-November issue went live today, which always helps to keep the month moving along. Rick Norwood liked The Incredibles, but not as much as I did, and Rick liked Team America about as much as I did. Parker and Stone delivered a very entertaining satirical musical with great songs like America – FUCK YEAH, I’m So Ronery and Pearl Harbor. My favorite line is probably from the Pearl Harbor song, either I miss you like Michael Bay missed the mark with Pearl Harbor or I need you like Ben Affleck needs acting school/He was terrible in that film.

Fourth, more rumors (via Comic Book Resources) of the proposed Green Lantern movie, and drum-roll…its Ben Browder of FarScape fame. Honestly, right now, I can’t know of a better choice. He helped carry FarScape to four seasons and one recent Mini-series. He’s proven he can work with SF material (if GL isn’t Science Fiction, I don’t know what comic book is), he has fit in with alien creatures that are part and parcel of some of the GL stories. Whether it’s the Kyle Rayner GL or the Hal Jordan GL, both have come across, at times, as a wiseass, a smartass and cocky (in-a-humorous manner), three characteristics that helped define Browder’s portrayal of Commander John Crichton on FarScape. So paint me one happy fanboy should this ever really happen, since a Green Lantern movie has been rumored for over 10 years. But hey, Spidey was in all sorts of development hell for about the same period of time, and that turned out ok, didn’t it?

Finished up Jonathan Strange the other day. There was a good story at the heart of the book, but the style didn’t entirely agree with me and utlimately decreased my overall enjoyment of the novel. I appreciate she wrote the novel in a specific style (19th Century English novel), but it was never a style I thoroughly enjoyed. I think she did a great job of building up a plausible magical England, and a history of magic in England, and a good job with the characters, but I would have been happier if the novel were trimmed a couple of hundred pages (it is almost 800 pages). I would probably give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Will I read the sequel? Probably. Will I rush out to read it? Depends on what is on my reading plate at the time.

Speaking of rushing out to read a book…as soon as that was finished, I jumped into Tad Williams‘ Shadowmarch and I’m absolutely loving every bit of it. This is exactly what Epic Fantasy should be. This just may challenge Greg Keyes’ The Charnel Prince for my favorite read of this year’s releases.

In sports news Barry Bonds was voted the NL MVP yesterday, the safe choice, and honestly, one that is a little tough to argue. However, for as good as he is, he comes across twice as arrogant on the field. The better choice would have been Adrian Beltre, the Dodgers would not have been in the playoffs without him, no questions about it. I personally would have gone with Pujols, probably the best offensive player in the game, and hey kids, he actually runs, instead of saunters, to first base.

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Well, just got back from The Incredibles, and I was very impressed. For the most part it did live up to the hype. Of course, there are obvious comparisons to be made to the Fantastic Four comic, but I think Brad Bird did in a way that was not a total rip-off. This movie also tackled a lot of the themes from the seminal Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons masterpiece Watchmen. My single line praise for the movie would be to say it does not poke fun at the super-hero genre, it takes the cliches, plays with them and tells a great story.

This is a movie I cannot wait to own on DVD.

Got some cool stuff from the in-laws for my b-day over the weekend, Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation 2 and the complete Season 1 boxed set of FarScape.

Like life, this blog is a work in progress. I just added the HaloScan comment option for all of my posts. I’ll be adding more linkage to the sidebar as time goes on. I’m also thinking of becoming an amazon associate, since I plan on pimping out good books, movies and games. Any thoughts, my millions….and millions of readers?

It’s a grey day here in New Jersey and that sums up my mood today. Just one of those days that seems to be taking up space. It amazes me how stupid drivers get at the slightest hint of precipitation. Of course I’m all for being a safe driver, but not to the detriment of the traffic flow and not overly cautious where you fear driving near the speed limit.

Looking forward to playing the PS2 tonight after watching the taped episode of Lost with my wife. It is one of the handful of shows worth watching and if it isn’t the best show on TV, it comes pretty damned close. Probably like most people, my wife and I have our own favorites and nicknames for each character. Dr. Jack (Matthew Fox) will always be Charlie, from Party of Five, Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) will always, of course, be Merry from LOTR, this only confuses matters when referring to each character, and I suspect it was intentional. My favorite characters are probably the the Big Guy (Hurley) and Kate. Besides the fact that Kate is gorgeous, she is a complex character, she’s gorgeous, we still don’t know too much about even after her spotlight episode, and she’s gorgeous.

This show is a prime example of good storytelling, the writers reveal the situation and for lack of a better word, “the world” of the story through the characters eyes. The writers leave just enough unexplained to keep viewers hooked. We learn about a different characters past on each episode, and as the season moves on this works well to throw you off balance, since as the show builds up you may begin to form your own past for each character, and when the episode focuses on that particular character, you have to adjust your view of the character. There is no better example how well this worked than on the character of Locke. The guy I really want to find out about is Sawyer, who comes across as the eeevil one.

Received some cool news in the e-mail inbox yesterday, I’ll soon be receiving review copies of KJ Bishop’s World Fantasy Award nominee The Etched City and the re-release of George R. R. Martin’s Fevre Dream. Martin’s book has been long out of print, and Bantam Spectra is smartly reissuing the book for eager readers of his A Song of Ice and Fire saga looking for something to tide them over until A Feast for Crows publishes, hopefully next year. Fevre Dream was also nominated for the World Fantasy Award when it first published, and is considered one of the finest vampire novels ever written, and as Mr. Martin himself puts it “Bram Stoker meets Mark Twain.”

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Yet another rather pedestrian, paint-by-numbers episode of Smallville last night. Well, except for Lois in gothish-witchy-slutty-lingerie garb, a pedestrian episode. Odd that Lois would conveniently return to Smallville in KANSAS for an interview with college recruiter from Princeton, NEW JERSEY (mapquest tells us there are about 1100 miles between Princeton, NJ and Kansas City, KS) Lazy convenient writing this week, typical Clark’s friends-get-powers-discover-his-powers-and-conveniently-forget-at-about-Clark’s-powers-at-the-8:45- mark, paint-by-numbers stuff that doesn’t have much dramatic tension, and the basic plot structure for far too many episodes. I guess that is my major gripe this season, aside from Chloe not staying “dead,” is that many plot elements are conveniently contrived. There were good episodes this season, particularly the one with The Flash, but this was an episode that revealed very little except to further illustrate Clark’s weakness to magic, that Jor-El/Krypton may be responsible for many of the witches in the past (Damn pretty soon, he’s going to be responsible for humans on earth), and of course showing Lois/Erica Durance in ahem, magical outfits.

Clicked over to amazon.com yesterday and saw the announcement for their Best of 2004 lists. In Fantasy and Science Fiction it should come as little surprise Stephen King’s final Dark Tower volume got the top nod from their editors, and for the most, part it is a tough one to argue, since I’m one of his many “constant readers.” A bit wordy, but the ending was perfect.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to see Greg KeyesThe Charnel Prince, a book I reviewed earlier this year for SFFWorld.com get the #2 nod from their editors. It is the second book in The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone Saga, and for my money, one of the top 2 or 3 multivolume fantasy sagas currently publishing. It’s been compared to George R. R. Martin’sA Song of Ice and Fire as well as Tad Williams’Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Impressive comparisons by any stretch of the imagination and the books, so far really do live up to the comparisons. The Briar King came out last year and is now available in paperback if you want to catch up. Best of all, Greg really does have a pretty strict plan for the series, with the third book, The Blood Knight, hopefully publishing next year and the fourth and final probably a year after that. I interviewed Greg at the time The Briar King published, he came across as a very good guy and a thorough and extremely cognizant writer, in terms of the traditions of the Fantasy genre, a good idea of what readers want to see, and perhaps most importantly, how to tell a great story that both utilizes the genre constraints/clichés and is fresh and new.

Yesterday I mentioned Ex Machina, the great comic published by DC’s Wildstorm imprint. Just discovered today they are publishing a Trade of the first five issues in January for $9.95.

Tonight’s bowling night, hopefully we can move up in the money rankings and bring our averages up a bit, it hasn’t been the best season so far, but we still have fun and throw back a couple of cold ones. Or may the reverse – have a couple of cold ones and have some fun.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Some people will ask, really do we need another blog? Yet another clown's rantings and ravings of his life, readings and experiences? Who knows, I don't for sure, but the Internet is a place for people to just ramble, like I am now. I guess this is amounts to an exercise to get me more in the habit of regular writing, considering I hope to be a published writer someday.

Still reading through Jonathan Strange, and for the most part enjoying it. On the horizon is Tad Williams'Shadowmarch, a book I've been looking forward to ever since Mr. Williams began publishing "episodes" of the novel online a couple of years back.

One of the better books I read lately, and reviewed in my capacity as *official* book reviewer for SFFWorld was Jacqueline Carey's Banewreaker, the first part of a duology that boils down to, in the simplest terms as a retelling of The Lord of the Rings. It is much more than that, of course. Do yourself a favor, my potential blog-reader, check out my full length review and pick up the book yourserlf, it is in stores now.

One of the other things I plan on doing here, besides pimping out my SFFWorld reviews, is spotlighting an author of the week, this week it is the aforementioned Tad Williams who's novel Shadowmarch, published just last week.

I'll also be blogging about the comics I buy every week or two. Since it's a slow week for me, with only two books coming out (Identity Crisis #6 and JSA#67) I'll hold off on dropping by the comic shop until the all important payday next week. Yes, I'm pretty much a DC-guy when it comes to the hero books, but next week, possibly the best book on the shelves Ex Machina, publishes the sixth issue. Scripted by the amazing Brian K. Vaughn with spectacular art by Tony Harris, this is comic has been delivering for 5 months now, and a new story arc starts next week (HINT - A GREAT JUMPING ON POINT FOR NEW READERS).

In sports, my cousin's youth hockey team, the Icehouse Avalanche, continues to roll along in their awesome undefeated season. The boys had a tough season last year, so we are all thrilled to see them winning games and tournaments. My much-better half and I are somewhat obsessed with the team, having travelled up to Mass. to watch them in the annual Haunted Shootout tournament the past couple of years.

So yes, count me a pissed of NHL fan that those jerk-offs can't come to terms with the likely cancellation of the season looming over hockey fans everywhere.

The Yankees have signed up Joe Girardi as their new bench coach, which is probably the best move they've made in quite some time. Joe is one of the best baseball guys around right now, and will make a great manager someday. Could he be the heir apparent to Joe Torre? Only time will tell.

And in other news, I turned the big 3-0 this past weekend. What does my lovely lady get me? PlayStation 2. I am so jacked up about this, on the one hand I love video gaming, on the other, well I love video gaming. There are so many games I need to play, good thing my best friend has had a PS2 for a couple of years and even better, he has beaten most of his games.

I've done the writer of the week, one other "of the week" I'll be doing is a Beer of the Week. This week's beer is Harpoon Winter Warmer. I think I got an early batch of it since I've only found it one liquor store, and my dad, the King of Beer himself can't seem to get his hands on it, he he. This is a dark beer, with some holiday spices like cinnamon and nutmeg mixed it. Every season has a special beer, and for me, this one is the one I probably look forward to most of all, every year.

Well enough for now, drop a comment and let me know what you think. I'm off to do some novel writing.

Now that I'm one of the last of my kind to have a blog, here's what you can expect...

...comments about the books I'm reading, have read and plan to read
...about the comic books & graphic novels I'm reading, have read and plan to read
...movies I've seen and want to see
...recaps of whatever sporting events I'm watching or have seen
....occaisional bitching and moaning about life in general
The book I'm reading right now is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke